Thursday, January 5, 2017

On narratives of hope, kindness, and happiness: Yuri!!! on Ice (very light spoilers)

Yuri
on Ice saved 2016.

Yuri
on Ice saved me.

Again and again across the
Internet, I’ve seen variations on the phrases above. If you didn’t already
know, Yuri on Ice is an anime that
exploded into popularity this past fall, attracting a global audience and the
attention of many people who don’t usually watch anime. On Twitter, it was the
most talked-about fall anime by a huge margin. The airing of the finale apparently crashed the servers of the anime streaming site Crunchyroll. Not
since Attack on Titan have I seen a
new anime with such cross-over buzz, and the two shows could hardly be more
different. Attack on Titan was a
grim, gory, almost unrelentingly dark action-thriller about teen soldiers
battling man-eating giants. Yuri on Ice
is a heartwarming, tender and uplifting sports anime about love and male figure
skating.

Yuri
on Ice saved 2016

--Twitter

I don’t think anything could
have saved 2016, but I am not being hyperbolic when I say that Yuri on Ice helped me get through some
rough days. I know that it helped others, too.

There are so many different
directions one could take with an analysis of this show. One could speak (and
certainly many have) about the central love story, and the importance of this nuanced
depiction of a happy, healthy, romantic/sexual relationship between two men. One
could speak of the sensitive portrayal of mental health issues--depression,anxiety, distorted self-image--in the show.One
could revel in the racial and international diversity of the cast. Much has
been made of the realism with which Yuri
onIce depicts the rarified world
of figure skating. Professional figure skaters have avidly followed the show. Iconic figure skating legend Johnny Weir himself seems to have fallen in love
with Yuri on Ice, tweeting about it
and saying in an interview with The Geekiary, “There are so many details that pop up that wouldn’t mean anything
to a casual skating fan, but to us as skaters who actually lived it, you can
see so much respect for our world and what we do through the animations and
story lines.”

There have even been articles
analyzing the way characters in the show usesocial media (they use it a lot, in a way that feels realistic and
up-to-date)

But here, I want to talk about
this show and happiness. I want to
talk about how it has brought happiness to so many viewers in what has been, in
so many ways, a dark time. I want to talk about the structure and narrative of
this show—how it touches on dark issues but is full of light, how suffused it
is with kindness and generosity. This is a story of love and passion and
character growth and the ending (spoiler!) is unambiguously happy. I confess that I have not
consumed much in the way of such narratives. The stories I read and watch are
so often dark, tragic, or at best bittersweet.

Yuri
on Ice showed me something new.

Despite the show’s upward
trajectory, Yuri on Ice starts off in
a scene of despair. Katsuki Yuri is a
23-year old figure skater from Japan, and when we first meet him he’s crying in
a bathroom stall. He has just placed last in the international figure skating
Grand Prix Final competition. He’s a talented skater, but he has issues with
anxiety and self-confidence, and his dog died just before the competition, contributing
to his stress. Yuri goes on to bomb the next major competition of the season,
and returns home to Japan with his self-esteem in tatters, depressed and
ashamed. He’s at loose ends, unsure of himself, and thinks that he may be
looking at the end of his competitive skating career.

Into his life walks
Viktor Nikiforov, five-time winner of the Grand Prix and Yuri’s long-time idol.
While trying to regain his love for skating, Yuri has been privately practicing
one of Viktor’s winning programs. A video of Yuri perfectly skating Viktor's
free skate program goes viral and catches the attention of Viktor himself, who
flies to Japan to be Yuri's coach.

What follows is a love story on more than one
level. Yuri and Viktor fall in love, yes (that’s pretty much telegraphed from
the beginning), and it’s a beautiful love story, tender and delicately drawn.
It goes past the will-they-or-won’t-they flirtation stage to the drama of a
real, committed relationship—something I've found rare even in straight anime romances. But entwined
with Yuri and Victor’s personal love is their love of skating; they find
inspiration for their art/sport in one another. And as the story continues it
also expands to the narratives of other skaters: Yuri’s competitors. Everyone
has a story; everyone is deeply invested in skating; everyone wants to do and
be the best. In addition to a personal love story, Yuri on Ice is a story about
the pursuit of excellence. In the end, each skater’s true competitor is
himself; each is trying, again and again, to score a new personal best.

In an earlier post I
referred to this anime as “gentle.” I was only midway through the series at the
time. Soon after writing that post I realized how wrong I was; the tension in
the show ratchets up dramatically when Yuri actually enters the Grand Prix for
the second time, and the viewer is taken on a roller coaster of emotions.
Yuri’s confidence has grown under Viktor’s guidance and love, but his anxiety
is not magically cured; his self-doubts and anxiety recur, threatening to undermine
all he’s achieved. The emotional stakes rise. There are unexpected obstacles.
Yet even as I was on edge with tension, I knew
that in the end it would be okay. I trusted the show’s creators. I trusted the
feeling of overall hope in their world.

Yuri on Ice doesn’t
take place in what is exactly our world. It’s very close to our world, yes, and
the characters feel grounded in realism; they’re complex and layered. But the
world they move in is a better world than our own. There is no homophobia in
the world of Yuri on Ice, no stigma
whatsoever to Yuri and Viktor’s love. Queerness appears to be utterly
normalized. Everyone in the cast is utterly decent. The show treats every
character with compassion and kindness. The skaters compete fiercely against
each other, but they also cheer each other on. And by the end, even the few
obnoxious characters have been redeemed.

There appears to be no
malice in the world of Yuri on Ice. There’s still heartbreak and angst, but
there’s no evil.

In late 2016, the real
world appeared (and still appears) to be falling apart to so many of us. And to
be able to escape it for even a short time to this kinder, brighter, better
world?

That was and is priceless.

I’ll repeat what I said
in an earlier post: Fiction is needed to depict the world as it is. But I've come to realize that it’s
also important for depicting the worlds that we want, the worlds that might be.

During this anime’s run
I was squeeing on the Internet with new friends, shamelessly gushing. I saw a
community form, and I saw how happy this show made people.

I want to write like this, I messaged a fellow writer. I want to write happy stories of character
growth.

Squad goals for you and me, she messaged back.

I don’t know if I can write a story like that (my own
written stories tend to fall toward heartbreak). But Yuri on Ice has shown me how important such narratives can be.
Positive and affirming doesn’t mean simple. It doesn’t mean a story can’t be
damn compelling.

And I learned that
joyful, uplifting moments in fiction can wreck and lay waste to my heart as
keenly as fictional tragedy and death.

I don’t quite know how Yuri on Ice achieves that, by the way—how
it devastates with joy. I’ve spent so much time trying to work it out.

But I know I want more.

*You can watch the
subtitled Yuri on Ice for free (and legally) through Crunchyroll.

*Funimation has the
English-dubbed version, but for god’s sake do not watch it first; the voices
are goddamn awful (although apparently there are some interesting choices and
improvements to the English translation)

*I have not even
touched on the tight plot structure of this series, the masterful use of misdirection
and the viewpoint of an unreliable narrator, the plot twist in episode 10 that
had writers on my Twitter timeline losing
their goddamn minds over how well-executed it was. Let’s just say that after
episode 10 you will see everything that occurred before in a new light.

*Oh, and this show is
also really funny at times. And hot. It’s sexy without feeling fetishistic or
exploitive (unlike most straight-male directed fanservice, which does often
feel uncomfortably exploitive).